'Easy A' star Emma Stone flashes her philosophy on life in a scene from the movie. (Adam Taylor)

If every age gets the teen movie it deserves, Generation Text could ask for nothing better than "Easy A." Will Gluck's high school comedy combines the soul of John Hughes with the arch sass of Diablo Cody, and delivers something delightfully new in the process.

Expect to hear much more about Emma Stone, who's thoroughly charming as misguided heroine Olive Penderghast. When we first meet Olive, she's sharing her woes on a much-watched webcast. It seems Olive has become the school pariah, in a tale that mirrors the book her English teacher (Thomas Haden Church) has assigned. Just like "The Scarlet Letter's" Hester Prynne, Olive has been humiliated and shunned, primarily for having sex with the wrong person.

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Or not, as it happens. What she really does is lie about having sex to the wrong people. Though still a virgin, Olive caves to pressure from her sophisticated best friend (Aly Michalka) and invents a wild night with a nonexistent boy. Her false confession is overheard by the campus moralizer (Amanda Bynes) and spreads instantly through school.

Once she finds herself saddled with a reputation, Olive decides to mess with her tormentors by embracing the false rumors. Alas, what seems like a good plan one day can, when twisted by gossip and judgment, become a disaster the next. And neither her crush (Penn Badgley) nor her parents (the delightful Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson) nor even Nathaniel Hawthorne can rescue her: She's got to figure a way out on her own.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a misfit loner as confident as Olive, who bears her considerable tortures with remarkable grace. But Stone is so funny, smart and sweet that we relate to her anyway.

While Gluck and writer Bert V. Royal are too self-aware to hit the highs of the '80s classics, they repeatedly reference, their clever remix feels both of-the-moment and eternal.

In fact, they shouldn't be surprised if one of the kids who sees it is inspired to make her own teen comedy someday — complete with nostalgic allusions to this one.